The End of the Churches: St Benedict the Moor

Report: the Church of St, Benedict the Moor has been sold. See my full description of this former parish, with photos, HERE.

A historic Hell’s Kitchen church which was the first Black Catholic parish north of the Mason-Dixon has been sold for $16 million, putting the future use of the 1869 building into question. First established as an act of reparation by a priest, the former St. Benedict the Moor building played a part in African-American history for decades, marking a time when Hell’s Kitchen was home to a large Black population before the growth of Harlem.

As first reported by Bisnow New York, the deconsecrated church at 342 W53rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenue and former rectory and parish buildings at 338 W53rd Street have been sold to billionaire developer Walter Wang. Publicly available New York County Supreme Court records show that the Archdiocese of New York sold the empty buildings to Wang’s JMM Charitable Foundation, a 501(c)(3) based in Los Angeles, California. Wang is the Taiwanese-American CEO of JM Eagle, the world’s largest manufacturer of plastic and PVC piping, while his wife, Shirley Wang is the CEO of Plastpro, a fiberglass door maker.

(The parish was originally in the Village. )

St Benedict’s move to Hell’s Kitchen cost $30,000, which the New York Sun of the time credited to fundraising by the pastor, Irish-born Reverend John E Burke, who was to stay its parish priest for decades. In 1903, he traveled to Rome, meeting Pope Pius X. Pioneering Black newspaper The Colored American, of Washington D.C., reported: “Father Burke, of the Catholic church of St Benedict, the Moor, brings back from Rome a special benediction from the new Pope, Pius the Tenth, for all the colored people of this country.” Four years later he was made the director-general of all Black parishes in the US.

The church became a center of African-American intellectual life, with a library dedicated to Black literature, a drama group performing Shakespeare and a weekly debating society dedicated to economic advancement. It had a parochial school beside the church, and a convent whose nuns ran an orphanage in Rye, Westchester. A 1911 book called Half a Man, about Black New Yorkers, said: “Only in this Catholic church does one find white and black in almost equal numbers worshipping side by side.

Beling, Sarah, “Historic Hell’s Kitchen Church — Home to First Black Catholic Parish in North — Sold for $16 Million,” w42st.com, 14/1/2023

(Above) Cardinal O’Connor at St Benedict the Moor. It had been a primarily “Hispanic” parish for decades prior to this event.